// Behind the scenes. A photo and the story behind it!

My story begins in the autumn of 1986, when I was born. I will not start all the way back with Adam and Eve, although perhaps because of my name, that famous snake and apple seem to have followed me throughout my life. I cannot say I had a difficult childhood. I arrived healthy into a loving family at the dawn of a freer era, and they did everything they could for me. “Study and always work hard… be careful with change, never give up certainty for uncertainty… take care of

My story began when I was twenty. I think that was when I truly began to become the person I am. Our mother died that year. My younger sister was fifteen. My older sister was twenty-three. I was living the free, rebellious life of a university student, but that period ended quickly. From that point onward, everything became different.

I am now in my forty-third year. I am a caring partner and mother, living with my two children and my current partner in a village not far from Szombathely. My parents live three houses away, and my older brother and his family another three houses down. Fortunately, our family is very close, and I can honestly say life has blessed me with a beautiful family. My daughter is eighteen and my son is fourteen. Every person in this world carries a different cross and walks a dif

It was December 2012. Everything changed on that particular day — permanently and irreversibly. At the time, I believed I would not survive what followed. But the old saying is true: what does not kill you makes you stronger — assuming you do not destroy yourself first. That December day, my ex drove me to work. Then I saw a baby and something inside me suddenly said: YES. It is time. The wounds of the past seemed to disappear. I was ready again.

I have lived in Canada since I was a little girl, and I married here too. My story is about two days. One day, almost out of nowhere, my husband and I decided to book an artistic nude photo shoot with a woman in nearby Edmonton whom we both knew and liked. There I stood in the middle of the room, almost completely naked, while Irene adjusted something behind the open door. Almost completely — because there was still one pair of underwear I had to take off. I could not do

I did not know this existed. I did not know you existed. Then suddenly you were standing there. We ended up in the same group of people and laughed together. It felt like something had been squeezing my soul for years, and one laugh suddenly unlocked every padlock I had fastened around myself. That laugh felt like freedom.

Back then, everything revolved around him. It was almost as though I had stopped existing for myself. As if I had dissolved into my femininity and every cell in my body was focused on making him feel good. I was happy too — this was not destructive compromise or conscious self-abandonment.

Years ago, I was different too. Tears, disappointment, then more tears. I needed all of it to become the person I am today. It was a long and painful process. The fragments of a heart that had never been completely whole shattered into atoms. Even today, I am still trying to fit the pieces back together. It does not work.

Mother, wife, homemaker, working woman, businesswoman, daughter, child, grandmother, sister, friend… So many labels that society places on women day after day. My story goes back to 2007, when I became pregnant at twenty-two. We had not planned it, but we decided to keep the baby and got married. At Christmas, my first child was born — and at the same time, the world around me suddenly became much smaller.

It was Thursday, 18 April. To this day I do not know where the strength came from, but I stood up and began a new life. Alone, with myself. I have not looked back since. I am happy. Thousands of thoughts had been lining up inside my head for days. In truth, they had been there for months and years, but only that spring did they become strong enough to turn into action.

We got together when I was twenty. Five years later, my first daughter was born, and then two more children arrived at five-year intervals. We had the family house, the dog, the cat, a shared business, holidays — everything according to schedule. On our tenth anniversary, we even got married. From the outside, it looked like an easy life. Could it have been? I do not know where I was for those twenty years. Even now, looking back, I cannot find myself in them.